Reconciling Faith and Reason

So there is this facebook group i joined where Christians were supposed to interact with atheists and pray for their conversion. It happened as a response to "A week" when Atheists and agnostics outed themselves with the red A on their profile picture. I started talking to the group when I saw a book linked that said "atheists do not fail to believe in God because of contradictory evidence, "they just lack obedience" this is very VERY wrong.

I feel I speak for most former-believers when I say it was generally emotional reasoning or misinformation that kept us with religion as long as it did, and it was reason and evidence that led us to where we are now.

I tried to post this letter to the "Pray for an Atheist" facebook crowd, who is targeting atheists during "A week" for prayer and conversation. They initially wouldn't allow this post there, so I am posting it here.

There was one girl I went to bible school with who said she was originally afraid to study the bible, because she feared it would make her loose her faith. I didn’t understand this at the time. If she believed the bible was rooted in truth, how would a greater knowledge of it compromise her faith?

She had overcome that fear though, as she was not here studying the bible. And years later, she did stop believing.

Many others avoid the same “mistake”. They don’t read their bible or question their philosophies, or if they read it, they don’t think about what they read, the historical context, or the contradictory scriptures. The last time I went to church, the pastor mentioned a poll that that about 50 percent of Christians could not name the 4 gospels. He both told them this was a shameful thing, and yet admonished the congregation to “Just Stop Questioning”!

I cringed. That was the last time I was dragged to church. I hated the idea that Christians might remain so not by reason or truth, but by emotional appeal to something irrational.

I’m an evolutionary neuroscience grad student. To some sects of Christianity evolution is now accepted just as the spherical globe or the sun being the center of the universe eventually was. But the youth pastor in my church as a teenager once explained the need to believe in christianity as "why would you want to believe in a book that starts with a lie?"

Every time someone brings up an "argument" against evolution and I refute it, I'll offer to give them books for them to read. I generally find they have went out of their way not to study science or biology and don't even understand what evolution theory is to begin with, and it’s hard to talk to them unless we are on the same page about what we are talking about. I generally suggest a book or two (and offer to pay for it) that explains what evolution theory is, or meets the more common creationist points. I’ve had this conversation close to a dozen times now, and no one ever accepts the books nor decides to read up on both sides of the issue on their own and come back. EVER. They just go on believing "in faith" because they choose not to expose themselves to contrary views, or they have to bury those unrecoverable facts somewhere in their mind. It must take a very strong psychological defense formation to keep doing that.

Evidence and reason are the enemies of any believer of a religion who put their hope in the unseen over logic and fact. Sure there might be a "come let us reason together" believer among the flock who believes that Christianity is buttressed by facts rather than chipped away by them, but you are few, probably young, and chances are they will not be religious forever. By not fearing evidence, they risk being exposed to more evidence that chips their faith way.

I for one, have always valued truth over happiness. If I had to choose between an ugly truth and blissful ignorance, it would be truth every time.